Job, Jobs and 'The Tree of Life'

This Thursday (6 October) morning, I was on the bus to my office. I was surfing through the books section of The Guardian on my iPhone when I received an SMS from my colleague and publisher, Mark Hobson. "I'm hearing on the news that Steve Jobs is dead." The message shook me to the bone. I didn't know what to say. For a few seconds, I just held the phone in my palm. It lay there, cold. I knew that the cancer-stricken, frail-looking Steve Jobs, the darling of Apple's fans, might die in the next few years. But I didn't expect to receive the news of his death so soon. It was as shocking as Michael Jackson's sudden death or as Lady Diana's death in a freak accident many years ago. Only a day before, Mark had shared with me that iPhone 4S, and not the much-awaited iPhone 5, had been launched in the US. And the very next day, I am told that that the man who gave the world the iPod, the iPad and the iPhone was dead.

I checked the news in Google. It was true. Jobs was dead at 56. A rare form of pancreatic cancer had claimed his life. I checked my friends' status notes on Facebook. Many were mourning Jobs' death. "Oh, no!" I replied to Mark.

Death. It spares no one. As children, our elders told us: "Death is a certainty. If you remember death every day many times over, the chances are that you will not make grave mistakes in life. You'll not go astray."

I remembered Jobs' own words on death from his famous commencement speech delivered at Stanford: "No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life." (Stay hungry, stay foolish)

Jobs, probably the most iconic inventor of our times, was saying this about death--that death is "very likely the single best invention of Life". Such words could have come only from a deep understanding of life. Jobs was a man whom life had afforded a second inning, and in his speech, Jobs had acknowledged his search for self-knowledge in India when he was young and out of college. The son of a Syrian Muslim, raised by a Christian couple, had gone to India to seek peace and knowledge from Hindu sages and had died a Buddhist. Jobs' understanding of death--and in turn, of life--could have come only from the wanderings of such a bold and searching spirit that he possessed. That's why he could say to the Standford graduates: "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

I haven't heard any contemporary business leader speak so eloquently about death and about the courage to follow one's heart and live with its consequences.

When I reached office, I found my colleagues discussing Jobs' passing away. Jobs' death had made everyone sad.

The Tree of Life

In the evening, I was supposed to go to watch Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. This was Malick's fifth film in a career spanning 40 years. The project was apparently in development for decades. Malick had been developing it as 'Q' and it was meant to be about the birth of the universe and the creation of life. After years of many false starts, the film was finally produced by the film's lead actor Brad Pitt. The film missed 2009 and 2010 release dates and was premiered in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or. Robert De Niro, who was the head of the jury, said that the film fitted the bill for the prize.

Some of my screenwriting buddies had read rave reviews of the film and wanted to see it in a group. Eight of us marched into the theatre. The theatre soon filled up with people. Two middle-aged ladies sat next to me.

When I began watching the film, I suddenly realised that Malick's film fitted in squarely with the sombre mood of the day. The Tree of Life is about birth and death, about love and loss and coping with pain.

Both Malick and Jobs are great minds. Unlike Jobs, Malick is very reclusive: he refuses interviews, refuses being photographed. Even though it might sound ludicrous, I began to see (perhaps more now when I am writing this, in hindsight) some parallels between Malick's and Jobs' lives: both had Middle Eastern fathers (Malick's was an Assyrian Christian Lebanese immigrant), both dropped out of college (Jobs from Reed College and Malick from Magdalen College, Oxford), and both had a philosophical bent of mind (it sounds weird to use past tense for Malick)--Jobs was interested in Eastern philosophy, Malick in the Western. Malick even translated Heidegger's Vom Wesen des Grundes as The Essence of Reasons and taught philosophy at MIT before he turned to filmmaking.

Malick is a rare filmmaker in America: Hollywood that produces hundreds of soulless films every year, a filmmaker like Malick compensates that soullessness with his uniquely photographed films, which are more like poems in motion pictures. His films are deeply philosophical and metaphorical.

The Tree of Life opens with a quotation from the Book of Job, when God asks, "Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation ... while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"

I saw this film as an adaptation of the story of Job from the holy Bible. Malick has set his film in the 1950s Texas, where he spent his own childhood. A large part of the film revolves around the childhood of Sean Penn's character and his two brothers and parents, played by Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. One of the three brothers dies (perhaps in a war zone) when he is 19. The film is about Penn's childhood memories and Chastain's and Penn's coming to grips with the loss of the child (for plot and production derails, see this page).

Here, the Biblical Job is Pitt's character, Jack O'Brien (initials are J-O-B). In the Bible, Job was a man tested by God after Satan wagers Job only serves God because of His protection. After losing his wealth, family and health, Job would rather curse himself than God (from IMDB).

One of the most weird parts of the film is the almost half an hour long creation of the universe sequence which is breathtakingly photographed. I saw the two ladies sitting next to me giggling at this Malickian indulgence. Because of the film's quirky sequences, apparently in the US, some theaters set up signs that warned "moviegoers about the enigmatic and non-linear narrative of the movie - following some confused walkouts and refund demands in the opening weeks". I can understand this confusion and I do empathise with such viewers. Perhaps they did not want to follow the director's vision, who, with a godlike eye, shows us the dimensions of the universe and the powerful elements of nature (just as the Lord talks about them in the Bible in the Job chapter).

The Tree of Life is a work of art, a work of genius, and by the end of the film, I was speechless at the sheer ambition of the film. I felt as if I had read a great book of philosophy or a great and wise tale from Tolstoy. Some critics have compared the film to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. As a film, The Tree of Life seems to be able to transcend all boundaries and communicate to even filmgoers who might live on other planets. This is a truly cosmic film. The last scene of the film, about life after the Day of Resurrection, is one scene that I dreamed of filming as a filmmaker. Malick beat me to it.

Poor Sean Penn looked lost in the film, not sure of what was going on. "I didn’t at all find on the screen the emotion of the script, which is the most magnificent one that I’ve ever read," he said in an interview. "A clearer and more conventional narrative would have helped the film without, in my opinion, lessening its beauty and its impact. Frankly, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing there and what I was supposed to add in that context! What’s more, Terry himself never managed to explain it to me clearly."

When I came out of the theatre, I felt compelled to write about it on Facebook. I posted a status update. The film somehow lessened my pain of Jobs' death. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

iPads in Singapore

From my official tech blog:

Last week, we ran an IDG story about Apple’s iPads selling well in Asia ahead of the official launch. The report mentioned that iPad appeared to be selling well in Asia despite the fact that Apple's official overseas launch wasn’t until the end of May.

The report was filed from Taipei. It said that the popular iPad was on sale at two stores near the main electronics bazaar in Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan.

Well, it turns out that Singapore is not that far behind Taipei in terms of iPad sales. This is not surprising at all because Singaporeans are gadget lovers anyway. Not too long ago, they had displayed their love for Apple’s products with serpentine queues when iPhone was first launched by SingTel here.

Personally speaking, it was only last week when I first saw an iPad in Singapore. I was attending a publishing workshop when I spotted an Indian entrepreneur, Manish Dhingra, director of Mediology, playing with the device. Naturally, many from the crowd, including myself, were interested to have a look at it, something that Manish graciously offered.

“I got it in the US,” he told me. Manish happened to be in the States when the iPad was launched and luckily he could secure a piece for himself before the stores ran out of the supplies (perhaps you know that iPads are manufactured in China).

During the workshop itself, one of my colleagues mentioned that some people were selling iPads through online forums in Singapore. They were selling the pieces with marked up prices. For example, the 16GB (without wi-fi) iPad should be available for around S$700 (US$499). It was being sold for S$1,500 and above! And people were snapping them up!

iPads at Mustafa

This Monday, my colleague Allan surprised me when he told me that he was getting his iPad from Mustafa. Mustafa, if you don’t know, is a very well-known 24 hours Indian specialty superstore in Little India, Singapore’s famous district for everything Indian. I thought Allan was joking. How could Mustafa be selling iPads? Was it even allowed?

A little later, a triumphant Allan returned with his black iPad. “I got it at Mustafa,” he preened. “Mustafa had imported around 70 pieces and now I think they are down to 3.” I’m sure it would all be gone by now, I thought as I was talking to him.

Allan’s wasn’t a bad deal. He got the 16GB wi-fi iPad for S$1,089 all right. Compared to the exorbitant rates being charged elsewhere, this is not a bad rate.

I did a little more research. Apparently, the iPad is being sold at many more places in the Lion City: Sim Lim Square, Far East Plaza, Lucky Plaza, Funan IT Mall, and City Square Mall. Moreover, some enterprising Singaporeans are selling new iPads shipped from the US on eBay. Naturally, they are charging a premium rate for them.

More

The ‘I’ in the iPod

If one were asked to imagine how many consumer products are so exciting that they deserve books written on them, the answer would be difficult to come by.

The Sony Walkman? The Mac machine? The Mercedes Benz? A few possible contenders but are you sure?

You may not be but if you’d asked Steven Levy, Newsweek’s Senior Editor, he wouldn’t be uncertain in his choice. He would go for the iPod which he calls the “Perfect Thing.”

And not for nothing. That is the title of his book on the iPod: The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness (published by Simon & Schuster, Inc. 2006).

Though Farhad Manjoo, the Salon staff writer, calls it “a title that seems to skip past the boundaries of mere affection and into a land of wild-eyed cultish idolatry,” Levy’s tome on the tiny contraption provides interesting perspectives into the ways it has affected our lives.

Launched in October 2001, the iPod has become “the signature artifact (sic!) of our young century, selling more than 60 million units in its first five years.”

Impressive! And why wouldn’t it be as it seems that everyone—from George Bush in the White House to Dick Cheney in the war room to the Pope in the Vatican and down to the bloke sitting next to you in the MRT—has one.

Want more stats to impress you? Here it is. According to a 2005 survey, the iPod is more popular on American college campuses than beer. Anybody for an ad on the iPod vs. the Tiger Beer?

The post-iPod world

The post-iPod world, according to Levy, is split in two: “Those locked into iPod reveries and those griping about how they have lost contact with the cooler part of the world.”

Levy talks about the “iPod wars” in New York’s subways—“ musical sumo matches where two iPod wearers spontaneously confront each other, thrusting the screen in each other's faces with a song cue.”

Though we haven’t seen such musical machismo on Singapore’s public transports, we have surely encountered hordes of music lovers plugged away from reality with their iPods on our buses and trains.

If one were to believe Levy, one could deconstruct a person’s character by looking at his iPod playlist. “Playlist is character,” he says. Dick Cheney's iPod features the Carpenters and the Pope's has Beethoven, Chopin and podcasts from Vatican Radio. What do you make of it? Play your own shrink and wallow in the mud of “musical voyeurism”.

The iPod has not just made us musical vouyers, it has changed the way music is being made, distributed and consumed. The à la carte option in the iTunes store has changed the age-old linear experience of listening to music. Now people can buy only the good songs, and cherry-pick the music they listen to. That makes us a “skip-forward generation" in Levy’s parlance.

Not just that. Manjoo has noted how music portability of iPod like devices has changed -- for the worse -- the way engineers record music. Record labels now use a very low dynamic range when they're mastering new albums because they want to ensure that people can hear new songs in noisy settings.

However, apart from music, the iPod’s contribution to Podcasting cannot be underestimated—the process of uploading and downloading content was empowered by Apple’s player. The phenomenon is significant as, in the understating of Indian communications expert, Indrajit Banerjee, it contributes to the globalization of the local.

The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman talked about it in a podcast on globalization: “…You are seeing now the power of this flat world platform for more and more individuals to upload — upload their own culture, their own story, their own music, their own styles — through blogging, through podcasting. And they’re going to be huge forces of homogenization in this flat world.”

A device for portable cocooning?

On the downside, Levy has admitted that the iPod is far from perfect: its skin is scuffable, its digital rights management is all too-confining. That is about its obvious shortcomings. What about its impact on our social lives?

In the personal sphere, the iPod has perhaps made us more alienated from each other.

Levy says that we are forming technological bubbles around us—a phenomenon termed as "mobile privatization" by sociologist Raymond Williams in 1974. The iPod has been advancing the “movement of portable cocooning that's been underway for decades”.

He further notes that when the breakthrough device in personal audio, Sony's Walkman, came in 1979, it provided us two things: escape, as it shut out the world to us, and enhancement, as it transformed our world into a soundtrack, reshaping our “perception of the crappy world around” us.

Levy believes that the iPod takes this phenomenon a huge step further: “Because it holds so much of one's music and can play back the songs with near-infinite variety, its addictiveness far exceeds that of the Walkman. Because it is more compact, it goes more places, with more ease.”

But this portable cocooning is a general truth about the Internet age. Thomas Friedman has said that technology is dividing us as much as uniting us.

Linda Stone, the technologist who once labelled the disease of the Internet age “continuous partial attention” — two people doing six things, devoting only partial attention to each one, has remarked that we’re so accessible, we’re inaccessible. “We can’t find the off switch on our devices or on ourselves. ... We want to wear an iPod as much to listen to our own playlists as to block out the rest of the world and protect ourselves from all that noise,” she said. “We are everywhere — except where we actually are physically.”

NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. In a globalised world where chaos, connectivity and communications are the buzz words, shutting out the rest of the world for a couple of hours a day brings some sanity to this panic planet.

Thank you for that, iPod.